As the Moon Walks

Prologue

The heavy silence washed over the forest, its deep jade leaves rustling as if awakening to rising excitement. Even the thinnest of their branches seemed to reverberate with the expectant sun, its rays almost early as they began to edge across the treetops and find space to imbed their searching tendrils. Each stream of light that was able to root itself somewhere beneath the thick canopy quickly shattered into smaller spindles and traced lines across the dirt floor.

Movement broke out instantly as soon as the sun touched the waiting people, the pounding of feet and clapping hands an explosion of sound in the otherwise silent forest. Men and women danced speechlessly among each other, their dark brown eyes emblazoned with passion. Their hands flew to their faces as they mimed the shedding of many tears, but their broad smiles promised resolution and deliverance. Clasped hands flew to the sky, circles drawn in the dirt with their toes paying tribute to the celestial bodies they believed in, and their eyes were ever pointed toward the skies, looking and hoping as they never had.

Peace, they mouthed silently, salvation.

In the center of the clearing stood a young girl of 11, her hair tied back in two plaits of blackness that stood defiantly against the sunlight. Each strand of hair shimmered as she turned to face the sun, its light shining forcefully in her face. The people around her had frozen as they watched her, their eyes narrowed against the brightness.

The Eldest stepped before her, the oldest woman of the clan standing before the youngest. The two clasped hands and knelt together, their almond eyes unwavering as they watched each other. The young girl’s eyes were as fiery as the old woman’s were calm. Where the old woman had knowledge, the young girl had curiosity. Where the old woman had a history, the young girl had a future.

The old woman took hold of the young girl’s hand and placed it palm up in her own wrinkled hand. With a faint tremble in her fingertips, the old woman kneaded the young girl’s hand, feeling the knots of tell-tale muscles and tracing the lines that knew. The old woman felt the girl’s story through her fingertips, the exchange of pulses assuring and confiding. There was a story in their blood, one that would not be silenced before it was finished.

“A name,” the old woman said slowly. The people around them stood still, but their eyes flickered with hope.

“Kai,” she said in the ancient tongue, the word for “open.” The people began to smile.

The Eldest’s brow furrowed as she tried to find the end of the word, the end of the prophecy that lay waiting in this young girl’s palm. The edges of it were so apparent; the sound already on the Eldest’s tongue, but the meaning escaped even her knowing hands, an ill foreboding twisting beneath her understanding touch. All the same, she whispered the word that she knew would be this girl’s end, the only fate that she could ever have. “Lun,” she said, the ancient tongue burning its way from her throat as she spoke without knowing.

She did not yet know how much it would cost her.

“Kaelyn,” the men and women said around her as their feet slowly came to life as their souls took flight.

Open and complete, they thought, open and complete…